EUROPE

Spring 2006

by Yves-Thibault de Silguy

The EU Constitution's rejection by Dutch and French voters has led to the quagmire the EU now finds itself in, and neither European governments nor the Commission and Parliament have yet identified a concrete solution to the Union’s constitutional problems. With no reforms on the horizon for streamlining its institutional mechanisms, the EU now runs a serious risk of compromising its own crucially important Lisbon competitiveness goals.

Why have the French, for first time since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, voted against a European project? The Eurobarometer opinion polls show that most people in France consider themselves profoundly European and support the EU project, so why this rejection?

Back in 1992, when they ratified the Maastricht Treaty by only a narrow majority, French voters had already signalled that there might be a “European issue”. To learn from the Maastricht experience, successive French governments tried to understand the roots of the increasingly visible gap between the country’s political class and what is today a majority of the population. Now the question is whether anything has been done since 1992 to explain the concrete benefits of the EU to French people, and whether our politicians have even attempted to communicate on EU matters. The answer is no, or at any rate not enough.

The European project therefore suffers – not only in France, but right across the EU - from three-serious shortcomings:

- Knowledge gap: Only 44% of people in France, for instance, knew about last year's European Parliament elections, and when they were to be held.
- Lack of sympathy: Everything that goes wrong is blamed on “Brussels”, while everything positive is hailed as resulting from the actions of national governments.
- Lack of clarity: Europe issues have become the preserve of specialists.

These three shortcomings are, in France at any rate, due in part to poor communication of EU policies. One consequence of the French system of government, which is based on a two-headed executive, is that both the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic manage EU policy. This may or may not be an efficient working mechanism for initiating and coordinating EU affairs, but certainly it could be further improved. Reforming the way EU affairs are dealt with at governmental level would go a long way towards tackling the EU knowledge gap.

The fact is that, in terms of EU affairs, governmental responsibilities are too widely scattered. This is a situation that must be addressed because EU-related decisions have a major impact on national policies.

European-level policies go to the heart of national governments' responsibilities: The internal market, competition policy, agriculture, economics, trade, environment, transport, research and so on. But the EU decision-making system is based on diplomatic methods and processes. EU membership also raises a country’s global visibility, so in France, for instance, it follows that the President of the Republic should be able to steer and control European policy. In the eyes of public opinion, the President is the guardian of the national interest.

To improve the way EU policy is dealt with in France, there should be two changes to the way the country is governed:

• The creation of a stand-alone EU Affairs Ministry,
• The introduction of an efficient working method.

To ensure the day-to-day management of EU affairs, and to maintain consistency between the President’s more strategic vision and the government’s day-to-day work, it would be advisable to grant a single government minister full responsibility for carrying out two tasks:

The first is to provide support for the President’s own EU-level activities, such as the preparation of political orientations and their implementation at governmental, administrative and diplomatic levels. The member of the government in charge of EU affairs would only be able to fulfil these tasks if made a full member of the European Council, for all matters other than CFSP-related issues, for which the Foreign Affairs Minister should obviously remain the coordinator. The EU Affairs Minister should therefore accompany the President for all discussions and negotiations on EU issues.

The Europe Minister's second task should be to support the Prime Minister in the coordination of European policy. Only a fully-fledged member of the government who is directly responsible to the Prime Minister, would have enough political clout to decide France’s position at the end of an inter-ministerial debate. These daily decisions are crucial to ensuring the consistency of France’s position, to mobilising the machinery of administration, to preparing instructions for negotiations within EU institutions and for the coordination of diplomatic activities. This is work of a type that does not require the convening of formal inter-ministerial committee meetings, but rather follow-up and the strict checking and control of policy implementation.

The establishment of an efficient new working method means that the EU Affairs Minister would need a number of important resources. The Prime Minister should delegate real power to the ministry on key EU issues, so that it would be responsible for arbitrating between the positions held by different invested ministries. In my personal opinion, the EU Affairs Minister should be made responsible for all EU-related policies other than the CFSP, monetary affairs and such Third Pillar policies as internal security.

In France, the powerful inter-ministerial coordination mechanism, the recently renamed Secretariat-General of European Affairs (Secrétariat général des affaires européennes) should be directly affiliated to the EU Affairs Minister, and one imagines that its equivalents in other member states should be similarly subordinated to new EU Affairs Ministries. The Secretariat-General of European Affairs (SGAE) is in charge of coordinating all governmental action with regard to Community policies, except the CFSP. This system is designed to guarantee the consistency and unity of French positions at EU level, so the SGAE is the central connecting point between the EU institutions and the whole administration, and operates through France's Permanent Representation in Brussels.

But I believe that the scope and role of the SGAE, which currently comes under the direct responsibility of the Prime Minister, needs to be further enhanced. The SGAE should in the future incorporate expert units on institutional matters or on comitology that are currently part of or answerable to the Quai d'Orsay, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Other units with special expertise that at present come under the Economic Affairs and Finance Ministry should also be moved to the SGCI. As economic policies become more coordinated between EU member states this is bound to affect social, employment and revenue policies. Leaving these areas under the sole responsibility of the Finance Ministry no longer makes sense.

The diplomats and senior civil servants in the Permanent Representation in Brussels should also work directly with the EU Affairs Minister. As matters stand, the SGAE and the Permanent Representation already work hand in hand, with the former preparing negotiation instructions which the latter actually carries out. It would clearly make for greater efficiency if all these experts were grouped under the same minister.

Streamlining these government organisations would confer on EU policymaking greater efficiency, clarity, and visibility. Such a change would not, of course, be enough itself to reconcile popular opinion in France or elsewhere with the way the EU project is being handled, but it would be a step in the right direction. French voters have a feeling that the EU is too complex and far removed from their immediate concerns. They do not know who to complain to about European-level developments, nor even who to congratulate! If there were a visible and high-profile EU Affairs Minister, who was really accountable to the people, French citizens would be better able to see European-level policy issues in human terms.

Leaving aside the need – in France and elsewhere - for internal reorganisations of the way EU affairs are dealt with, there is another reason for introducing powerful new EU Affairs Ministers; as a symbol, this would send out a strong message that Europe is a matter of national importance, not a distant and exogenous entity. Clearly, the crisis the EU is going through cannot be resolved merely by mechanical readjustments, but symbols have a crucial role to play. The euro, for instance, is a visible symbol of a major European achievement that goes far beyond its monetary and financial benefits. If stand-alone EU Ministries were to be created in France and elsewhere, this would show that EU matters are no longer the anonymous work of experts in Brussels, but rather the outcome of common decisions in which member governments play significant roles through their EU Affairs Ministers.
yves-thibault.desilguy@suez.com